I hope that everyone enjoyed their Mother’s Day weekend! For Mother’s Day, all I wanted was to spend time with my boys so we decided to do my childhood favorite pastime – camping. During the month of May, we are on a No Spend Month plan, which means we had to find ways to not spend any money in order for us to go on our little camping trip.
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Thankfully, my husband and I have been avid campers for our entire relationship so as far as gear went we were covered. We included the food for camping in our $100 a week grocery budget and we managed to not go over. However, I forgot all about the fact that we would need bottled water. We were going to be camping on the bank of the lake with no access to facilities…with a 16 month old and our dog. Oh and did I mention that I’m 6 1/2 months pregnant so I can’t drink beer?? After I had a mini freak out that we were going to have to break our No Spend Month plan, an idea hit me when I filled up my son’s sippy cup with milk…..we have a ton of milk! Why not put the milk in other containers and then wash out the milk jugs and fill them with water? So that’s exactly what I did in order to keep from breaking our No Spend Month plan.
I was really bummed though that I forgot to bring the camera so I was using my phone until it died Saturday morning. I would have loved to have captured the adorable site of my son copying everything that Daddy did when driving the boat. Conner loved to help daddy steer and honk the horn. 🙂
These reusable snack pouches that I bought last month were great! I loved that among all the not-so-healthy camp food that we brought, we were able to give Conner some proper nutrition. These were packed with pureed sweet potatoes, apples, and pineapple all mixed together in a little bit of pineapple juice. It’s really yummy!
Now, enter the not-so-healthy camp food. 🙂 Hamburgers and hot dogs are true camping food classics. We brought our well used and beaten grill so it would be easier to cook the food with a toddler running around.
We still bathe while we are camping – I normally just bathe in my bathing suit in whatever body of water we are camping near. This time the water was pretty gross so I boiled it first and put it in the bath pan I brought for Conner. I’m the queen of travel size toiletries so we didn’t have to worry about buying any.
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| Conner after his bath – all ready to hit the hay! |
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| Please tell me that someone else has this many travel supplies???? |
This camping trip was the first one that my hubs and I got to use our percolator that we bought forever ago {see the label still on it?? lol}. I was super thankful for coffee every morning but especially thankful Sunday morning when a cold front had moved in and I was freezing!
There really is nothing like sharing the awesomeness of the outdoors with the ones you love. It was a great way to reconnect with my husband and it was so incredible to watch Conner play and explore the woods and the lake. The wonder of a small child is something truly amazing.
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| Lilly a.k.a the Princess |
So if you’re in need of a vacation but don’t have the funds available you could go camping for relatively cheap {or for nothing if you already own everything you would need}. I’m proud of us for being able to stick to our No Spend Month plan. My husband even wanted to go and get me a Mother’s Day card on Sunday when we got home but I wouldn’t let him. After all, the point of No Spend is to NOT spend money. I’m hopeful that the rest of our second week can go as smoothly as this weekend did.
Linked Up To: A Bowl Full of Lemons
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I love writing about my family's journey towards financial freedom and about ways to optimize your life, save money, and live well! Here are a few more ways you can save money:
- Cook at home. During our debt-free journey we NEVER went out to eat because we honestly couldn't afford it, and now, even though we could afford it, we still don't go out to eat that often. But I'll be honest, meal planning was such a struggle for me during that time, but it totally saved our budget when I did it effectively! I ended up using a meal planning service for about two years which helped me not only meal plan better, but also helped me to create wholesome, healthy, and delicious meals for my whole family! You can see all the details and try different meal plans based on your preferences here .
- Earn gift cards. A simple way to earn a little extra money from home by using the Swagbucks site instead of Google for searching. I actually still do this to earn Home Depot gift cards for all our home projects. You can also do surveys and a few other things to earn points, which you redeem to purchase gift cards from them. Swagbucks is what we used to earn Amazon gift cards to help pay for Christmas or cash through PayPal to help pay off our debt faster. You can sign up for Swagbucks here.
- Switch Cell Phone Providers. One of the best things we did on the debt-free journey was to switch from our super expensive $150+ a month cell phone bill to a much more affordable plan! In fact, my cell phone bill is only $30 a month (my husband's plan is paid by his business)! Check out Mint Mobile here to see if you can save your family some money!
- Create a budget. It took us a while to figure out a budget that works well for our family, but the two things that we have used over the years and still do (and still love) are my Budget Binder and Personal Capital (online budgeting software). You can see my Budget Binder tutorial here and check out Personal Capital here.
Hello, a new reader here! And I’m loving your posts. Just had to comment quick, I laughed when I saw your bin of travel supplies, because I have the same thing in our bathroom cupboard for anytime we travel!